Academic Inflation

Child me, 1979

Weeding in the potato patch

Grandfather says

Go to university

Get a good job

Don’t work hard all your life

Like I did

For the job I have now

All you needed in 1979

Was a bachelor’s degree

By the skin of my teeth

In 2008 I got in

With a master’s degree

And a teacher’s certificate

Highest level in foreigner Japanese

And a guide on the inside

English majors are unqualified to teach English here

Foreigners can work no more than five years at one place

To be the professor of grandfather’s dream

I need five more years of study and research

To be the forty-five year old virgin

Hunting a doctoral position

Old me, 2011

Teaching and reading and writing and researching

Labrador Grandfather didn’t know

About academic inflation

If I had to do it all again

I’d do it smarter and faster

To try and outstrip the pace

Of academic inflation